Unofficial news and tips about Google

February 16, 2011

Google's New Navigation Bar, Publicly Available

The new navigation bar is slowly rolled out to all Google users. After more than 6 months of testing, the new navigation bar removes the clutter by grouping extraneous links in a menu inspired by Google Chrome. It also removes link underlining and replaces it with a colored bar. There's more spacing between the links, so the new navigation bar works better on a touchscreen device.

Another change is that Google shows your name instead of your email address. For some reason, Google doesn't link to the Google Profile and makes it more difficult to switch to a different account if you use multiple sign-in or Gmail delegation. Now you need to click "Switch account" to see the list of accounts you can use.

Unfortunately, Google didn't manage to add the bar to all its services, so you'll only see it if you use Google Web Search, Google Image Search, Google Realtime Search, Google Maps and Gmail.

An annoying side-effect of this change is that it's hard to tell which account you're currently using. If you sign in to multiple accounts and you use the same name for all your accounts, it's not that easy to distinguish the accounts. Maybe a profile image or a different color next to your name would solve this problem.

@Alex: Yep, I have multiple sign-ins enabled and in the new bar, it takes three clicks to do when in the old bar only two two clicks.

Now you have to first click on your name, then on Switch account, and finally click on the account you want to log in to. Before, it was just clicking on your email address logged into and then on the account switching to.

I got the new bar last night, but I can't say if I'm either excited by it or not.

The worst part though is that they still don't allow it to be customized. I'm assuming this is because they want to have sufficient control to promote certain services through that bar, but the cost in usability for medium and advanced users is pretty big.

so when should we expect to hear about this in the news...ya know, a new security issue. I just heard a bunch of students talking about how they all were reading each others emails and sending emails to and from each other under different friend's accounts. good job google..another lawsuit in the making.

I'm seeing the new nav bar in every service. Seems like they have been slowly releasing it in each service over the past couple days. It also seems that some services show the email address while others show the name.

1) Double-click sign out is a hassle. This is not complaining, it is fact. Many people (myself included) find it a necessary practice to sign out often.

2) I am not interested in having my name displayed for everyone to see. I don't need Google to tell me my name. I do need to know which account I am in and I much prefer to not bleed time for that information.

The interface looks better, but the usability and security changes cause a large negative net effect on my user experience.

I get the new nav bar in both my Education and Standard edition Apps accounts, but only from my office, never from home. After some testing I found that I only get it if I'm connected to Google via IPv6, never via IPv4. Does anyone else have the same experience?

Where is the sign-out ? Looks like google doesn't want its users to sign out ever..Where is the sign-out ? Looks like google doesn't want its users to sign out ever..Where is the sign-out ? Looks like google doesn't want its users to sign out ever..i clicked a hundred times and it really doesn't work at all... tsk-tsk-tsk!i'm disappointed.

At work I have the new navigation bar...at home in my pc...no! I refreshed, cleared the cache, tried with Firefox and Chrome, but apparently my pc doesn't like the new navigation bar and it shows the old one!

I have been forced to use this new navigation bar for more than 2 weeks in chrome, and it's awful that I can't use the Gmail delegation feature any longer. As it doesn't display the other delegated account under "switch account" window. Anyone figured it out how to fix it? thanks.

I'm not a big fan because it wastes more vertical space than the old one. Vertical pixels are very valuable on widescreen laptops and netbooks. In Google Docs, I want to see more document not more nav bar! Still, I can appreciate the need to be touchscreen-friendly and I guess a few pixels isn't all that much.

The ugly thin blue strip on the top portion of the toolbar is hard on the eyes and now I have to click so many times to sign in/out of only one gmail account. My other gamil accounts have not been afflicted with this hideous toolbar - yet. If Google does not get this thing off my account I will have no use foe them anymore. Disappointed!